OK...this thread is devolving into math WAY too quickly for my tastes. Time to insert some nuggets of "wisdom". Last year, I made the 2nd round for the first time since 2010 as a last minute sub that had only 72 hours to build all six teams. Basically, that just means I had way too much time to build these teams...we'll see how much "thinking" and "strategy" hurt me this year. And there are certainly no spreadsheets to be found in here.

$70 million--Speeding Into Last (Petco)

OK, first team, first stupid move. I always go speed heavy at low caps and this year was no different...Raines, Womack, Coleman and the immortal Mitchell Page (getting a lot of WISC love in this league) give me nearly 300 SBs with a late career Greenberg and rookie Chipper to drive them in. But, then I brainfarted and used a catcher with a noodle arm ('96 Kendall). Sure, he can hit but we will get rolled by other SB heavy teams.

I focused on ERC# within the same $/IP band for my starters and ended up with 1944 Tommy dela Cruz (who?), 14 Doc Ayers, 13 Al Demaree and 66 F.Peterson. Um, could work? An aging Deacon Phillippe as my long man with 67 Hiller, 1888 Dick Conway and 18 Bob Steele rounding out the 'pen.

Hitting Stats..282/363/411, 95 HR, 345 SB
Pitching Stats..1350 IP, 1.09 WHIP, .243 OAV

$90 million...DeGrom Takes A Nap (Citi Field)

Didn't like this league because it's basically a modified 80 mil open league and I SUCK at open leagues (most of my non-WISC life is in progressives). So, I tried to maximize value by taking a hitter just slightly over 9 mil (04 Nap and his .975 OPS) and the ever-popular DeGrom on the hill (because he seemed to be the best value). My lineup is mostly switchies with speed (Coleman, McGee, Rollins, Berkman [ok, he has no speed]) with Gene Tenace behind the plate and '73 Yaz at 3rd? I also have Orlando Merced for some reason...maybe because he's a switch hitter.

Rest of rotation is '64 Horlen (who I love) ,'05 Pedro and 28 Braxton with a bunch of randoms in the 'pen that for the life of me, I have no idea why I picked. Maybe for the names (Ox Miller!)? Only 1325 IP but I hope that Citi helps manage that.

Hitting Stats....296/382/440, 93 HR, 242 SB
Pitching Stats...1325 IP, 0.97 WHIP, .212 OAV

$110 Million...Speaker of the House (Shibe Park)

This was the easiest choice...I started with Speaker (as did many) and this was an easy team to build. I opted for the 28 A's crappy season over the Sens crappy season and added the 1913 (Red Sox) and 1922 (Indians) studly versions. Dilone as my 3rd OF with Hal Trosky and Boggs on the corners and 03 Nap and Eddie Lake(?) up the middle.

No surprises in the rotation with 02 Bernhard, 02 Pedro (you'll see those two again in a minute), 17 Kluber and 80 Mike Norris (maybe the wrong guy at this cap?) and a strong pen (on paper) with Eck, Devine, Uehara and Lilliquist. This team might actually be good.

Hitting Stats...334/412/489, 84 HR, 168 SB
Pitching Stats...1384 IP, 0.96 WHIP, .203 OAV

$120 Million---What Has 2 Arms and 7 Legs (Camden Yards)

OK, I get it. The winning strategy was going 8 for pitching. I just wasn't as crazy about it as "2" (although I have yet to find anyone else that has picked the number...which is hardly reassuring). I started with Bernhard and Pedro (see above) and then I get 72 Perry and 42 Cooper (I had Bonham in here first but liked Cooper more). The pen isn't great...a lot of short IP guys (52 Fornieles, 92 Rasmussen, etc.) with 82 Goose as the long man.

Wasn't sure what to do with bats...tried several numbers before settling on 7. I liked 1897 Davis as my SS and 27 Frisch...while not his best season, still makes a good 2b. 37 Dickey behind the plate, 57 Musial at 1b, 07 Chipper at 3b...an OF of 17 Trout, 97 Bonds and 47 H.Walker with the immortal Bob Caruthers as my DH. Good pop in the lineup and strong defense up the middle.

Hitting Stats...332/418/538, 200 HR, 274 SB (although most are unusable)
Pitching Stats...1447 IP, 0.97 WHIP, .206 OAV

$130 Mil...Chicks Hate This League (PNC Park)

Well, if nothing else, I already got props for the team name. That will likely be the high point of the season. Not sure why I didn't just say "F it, I'm never making round 2" with this team...but I also kinda did that in last year's version and round 2 was pretty painful. I probably shot too low with HR (6) and HR/9 (.252) at the expense of value so I'm not at all confident about this team's chances.

I tried to go for high average hitters who hit a lot of doubles without going yard and ended up with a lineup of 45 Cavarretta, 74 Carew, 35 Appling, 88 Boggs, 21 Speaker, 22 Cobb and 55 Ashburn with the immortal Bob O'Farrell behind the plate.

Pitching is as good as I can get at that HR/9 limit...including the popular (and expensive) 94 Maddux plus 64 Chance, 33 Hubbell and 43 Chandler. The pen is strong (although the starters are all IP heavy) and I even worked in Sweetbreads Bailey as my mopup. Mmmmm....Sweetbreads.

Hitting Stats....343/446/465
Pitching Stats...1465 IP, 0.96 WHIP, .208 OAV (Is it bad that all my teams from 90-130 basically have the same team WHIP?)

$160 million....Red Cub Sox (Huntington Ave. Grounds)

Loved this theme. So many ways to go here...although admittedly, focusing on fewer seasons and more teams never crossed my mind. Never really considered a single franchise either because the benefits of the 2nd franchise outweighed the cost, in my mind. Played around with the Phillies with Pete and the 1894s (sounds like a bluegrass band) but couldn't make it work. Then started looking for good pitching seasons for multiple guys and that got me playing around with the ought-Cubs. Tried pairing them with a Braves team that was in the mid-160s that I was pretty happy with.
Then I tried the Cubs with the Red Sox and got a better team (according to SimMatchup) that came in at 160 (2 x 10 seasons). 1908 here got me 3-Finger, Cy and Elmer Steele and then I added 14 Dutch (who comes with Speaker) and 2000 Pedro (who comes with Nomar). 29 Hornsby is by far the best 2b season for those two franchises and Hack Wilson makes a nice teammate. Then I splurged on some single season guys (46 Ted, 05 D.Lee, 87 Boggs, 07 Papelbon) to round out the lineup and filled in around the edges. Kinda liked how it turned out, which probably means 75 wins.

Hitting Stats...344/431/587, 269 HR
Pitching Stats...1531 IP, 0.85 WHIP, .191 OAV, 35 HR allowed.

Posted by redcped on 8/11/2019 11:39:00 PM (view original):
Ozo, can you perhaps explain what the Value Index measures? Not trying to steal your secret sauce, but I'm curious what factors into it.

At a base level, it factors in both quality and expense

Posted by ozomatli on 8/11/2019 10:57:00 PM (view original):
In my ideal world/theme, starters never reach the 5th or 6th due to in-game fatigue. Ideally, I have a bunch of guys with great IP/G who I have the flexibility to remove after 50-60 pitches. This rarely happens because, as Brian mentioned earlier, RPs are a better value at the same $/IP rate, so it's worth it to capture some of that and not just roster a bunch of 100IP+ guys, but if the goal is to maximize the quality of the pitches thrown, shorter starts are better.

I get more innings out of my starters above their RL innings so they are worth slightly more $/IP. Thought this was standard procedure. A long time ago when the Superman Long A strategy was in style, there were rule changes to stop it. It was announced that a SP pitching in relief would fatigue at a slightly faster rate, and I believe it based on my results. My RP also exceeding RL innings less often..

Hm, I haven't observed that there's a difference in the amount of IP I can get out of RP vs SP, though I don't have any data to support it either way. I've gotten 175 from 2016 Kershaw pitching exclusively in relief, though, which is 17% above his real life total. Generally it comes down to how efficient they are with their pitches though, regardless of being a SP or RP, which would be expected.

Also, last year I really slacked on this, but I'll be sharing some roster analysis for each theme within the next week.

I build my teams quickly, and by tournament launch I've forgotten what I was thinking.

$70m: Piggy
Angel Stadium

.283 BA / .371 OBP / .422 SLG

I'm curious how many of these hitters I've ever used, though Kung Fu Panda platoons at catcher. I drafted a few sluggers (Earl WIlliams! Bob Johnson! Don Lenhardt! Household names all) because with the limited player pool, I might not see only deadballers. I regret letting my defense get this bad. Lefty Marr looks like a decent leadoff bargain.

1366 IP / .236 OAV / 1.05 WHIP

The pitchers are less obscure. I'm about as thrilled as you'd expect by Irv Young, Rankin Johnson, and Al Demaree as starters, but my bullpen are recognizable (1910 Deacon Phillipe doing long relief, 1995 Mike Birkbeck closing). Pitchers park because defense bad.

$90m: deGrom/Connor
Citi Field

.316 BA / .383 OBP / .429 SLG

I built a high OPS team around Bryce Harper, then switched to a speed team (not SB, just speed, though I have '88 Rickey) because I remember WaitNSee cleaning up with them. I think this has to do with avoiding double plays? Buck Weaver doesn't run but SS+++. Oh look, John Kerins! Yawn.

Was Roger Connor always a switch hitter in WIS? He's like the Tommy Tucker I've always wanted. I totally forgot about the stadium requirement when building this team, but since '85 Connor apparently has no associated WIS stadium, I'll be hangin' with Cowbell Man in Citi Field.

1366 IP / .221 OAV / 0.96 WHIP

deGrom, obviously. Clark Griffith I pair with Slim Sallee a lot at lower caps. Birkbeck is one of my best arms on this team, too.

$110m: Rocket / Yeah / Satellite Of Love
SkyDome

.324 BA / .419 OBP / .493 SLG

1367 IP / .195 OAV / 0.96 WHIP

I've been weirdly consistent so far with team IP. Huh.

I missed the 'no partial seasons' rule when using Rickey Henderson, so I rebuilt this at the last minute around Roger Clemens. As a Mets fan I hate Roger Clemens IRL but ¯\_(:/)_/¯

Cookies: '01 Pedro, '18 Brasier (who? I don't watch much baseball these days), '14 Aaron Sanchez (who?). '83 Boggs, '87 Tony Fernandez. One stale cookie in '04 Lance Berkman who I haven't used in ages.

I wrote an article about SkyDome's retractable roof for my school newspaper in seventh grade. It seemed like exciting technology in 1989! Plus I never win in Fenway.

$120m: I'm Eighteen
Memorial Stadium

.328 BA / .414 OBP / .489 SLG

Chose the 1's around a few OPS guys (the Pujols 3B year, '11 Miggy, '51 Ted "Frozen Head" Williams). 1891 Billy Hamilton I use all the time. Cullenbine for switch hitting OBP. Yeah, this looks alright.

1385 IP / .197 OAV / 0.89 WHIP

Like a lot of people I thought of the 8's right away, but I took Mathewson over Walsh. Was there a reason? Mathewson / Guidry / deGrom looks good, bullpen a bit shakier than I'd like. I hardly ever employ the Milacki strategy, but who else was I gonna take for 1988?

Looks like I went neutral on the stadium, which means I couldn't decide what my team strengths were.

$130m: The Dirty Dozen
Bennett Park

.360 BA / .429 OBP / .516 SLG

Speaker, Munson, Gwynn, and Cobb tie with 12 HRs. Foolishly or no, I believe in the value of HR hitters a bit more than other owners. It's hard to hit homers off deadballers, sure, but even when a forty HR guy hits twenty, those twenty mean something. So I went with Bennett Park (hedged my bet slightly by not taking the new Yankee Stadium) and I'll stubbornly try to slug my way through round 2.

1388 IP / .188 OAV / 0.89 WHIP

I couldn't get the quality I wanted with lower HR/9, so I capped at .47 so I could take '16 Kershaw in round 2. I think I can build a pretty solid round 2 team still and hit more homers than I surrender. I don't make many predictions here, and when I do they're wrong, but this round 1 team should cruise into the playoffs.

$158m: One Hundred Fifty-Eight Giants
Polo Grounds

.346 BA / .430 OBP / .570 SLG

I might have built a slightly better team by mixing the teams up, and I tried for a minute but it felt like work. Here I have Connor again, Hornsby's one Giants season, ace defense in Posey and Scutaro, Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes, and '02 Bonds and his 199 walks. My HR hitters will underperform-Bonds always does-but again that's fine as long as they hit some homers.

1478 IP / .186 OAV / 0.85 WHIP

This is why I instantly thought Giants. Fred Toney's overpriced now except at high caps like these, and I also get Mathewson, Schupp, Hearn, Nehf, and Romo. Plus I like the Polo Grounds. Pacific Bell, too, but not for this team.

$70M – First & Last
Big Dick’s Thrift Shop
Busch Stadium II

I put the least amount of effort into this theme. Low caps are not my strength and I felt like searching through all the options would just make me second guess myself way too much, so I tinkered till I got a workable team and trusted it. We’ll see how it goes.

There’s going to be a lot of mixing and matching in my lineup, as I went after partial seasons to avoid wasting money on scrubs.

’01 Parent, ’97 Stahl, ’90 Rasty Wright (who seemed popular, given the rosters I reviewed), ’17 Mancini and ’55 Hector Lopez will carry the bulk of the lineup weight.

’67 Hughes, ’44 Wilks, ’44 Dela Cruz and ’08 Mussina make up the rotation, with Mathewson, Eickhoff, Rivera, Kealey and Scribner in the pen. Busch II should help maximize on PA and IP.

My optimism level for this team is low.

Offense: .302/.381/.430, 207 2B, 56 HR
Pitching: 1,353 IP, 1.10 WHIP, 3.20 ERA, 5.5 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 0.88 HR/9


$90M Double Eagle
In the Boggs of the Mad Dog
Turner Field

I had two goals: Get as close to $40,000/IP as possible, and find a high PA/good defensive hitter to maximize on the $9M as much as possible

I flirted with using Honus Wagner, but I finally settled on ’88 Boggs as it made the rest of my lineup better. Appling, Giles, Henderson, Raines, Connor, Randolph and Wynegar round out the order, with some strong bench bats to provide PH relief.

For pitching, I looked heavily at Kevin Brown but decided on ’98 Maddux. A little more than I wanted to spend but he should do well at this cap. Kluber, Bryn Smith and Moyer round out the rotation, with a loaded bullpen featuring Fister, Quinn, Adams, Rivera and Hill.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this team.

Offense: .308/.408/.453, 296 2B, 81 HR (and half as many Ks as walks, which I like)
Pitching: 1,425.2 IP, 1.05 WHIP, 2.90 ERA, 6.8 K/9, 1.69 BB/9, 0.76 HR/9


$110M: 3x Franchise
Guest Speakers
League Park II

Always nice to see I have the same choice as schwarze, but we ended up with fairly different rosters. I had this team in Huntington Avenue Grounds originally, so after the rule clarification, I needed to rework a bit to add a few more innings but I’m happy with it.

I found either a SP or an OFer would work best, at least in the research I did. I looked strongly at Kevin Brown and Don Sutton, but just wasn’t totally pleased with what their 3 franchises had to offer.

My Speakers (’14, ’23, ’27) will be hitting 1, 3 and 8 in my lineup, with ’89 Boggs, ’38 Trosky, ’49 Doerr, ’47 Boudreau and ’19 O’Neill rounding out the order. This team should hit a crap ton of doubles with minimal strikeouts. I like this offense.

I splurged a bit on ’17 Johnson, and ’02 Bernhard was a must. ’17 Sale and ’18 Kluber round things out, to give my rotation some balance and extra K’s when needed. Stocked up on starter partials and stud RP seasons in the pen, including Joss, Tomlin, Gray, Burgmeier, Niggeling, Miller and Hill.

I really like this team and think it will be one of my better performers.

Offense: .328/.409/.492, 403 2B, 75 HR, minimal Ks
Pitching: 1,581 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 2.65 ERA, 6.5 K/9, 1.79 BB/9, 0.64 HR/9


$120M: Lucky Numbers
Full House, 9’s over 8’s
Municipal Stadium

In keeping with my trend this year, I didn’t spend too much time on this team. I found one I liked relatively quickly and just tinkered to make it better.

I knew right away I’d go with 8 for pitching, due to the plethora of SP talent in 1908, plus 1918 Jack Quinn for the pen and an effective but relatively cheap option in 2018 Kluber. ’98 Wells and ’88 Pascual Perez round out the rotation. The pen features a number of very good, high IP/G pitchers, including Quinn, Wilhelm, Dean, Garber, McDaniel, Leever and Wagner. Some guys I’ve never used before, but I think they’ll do well.

I liked ’89 Boggs for this theme, so I started with a 9 team for hitting and never looked back. The lineup features a wealth of talented hitters, including Brouthers, Speaker, Cobb, Delahanty, Vaughan, Gehringer and Fernandez. Gehringer has the most homers at 14, so we’re going with Municipal Stadium.

I’m not sure how to feel about this team, but I do like them “on paper”. The offense should score a ton.

Offense: .338/.413/.474, 361 2B, 90 3B, 69 HR
Pitching: 1,570.2 IP, 0.93 WHIP, 2.18 ERA, 6.19 K/9, 1.48 BB/9, 0.49 HR/9


$130M: Calm Before the Storm
Deuces Wild
Polo Grounds V

I wasn’t too worried about constructing a good lineup for this theme, so I decided to start with pitching to get a staff I was pleased with. I’m not 100% confident in my rotation, but as long as we can get the game to the pen close, I think we’ll be in great shape. ’43 Chandler, ’64 Chance, ’23 Luque and ’35 Blanton are the starters, with a stud bullpen of low-OAV pitchers, including Carlos, Harris, Rasmussen, Manship, Niggeling, Blue, Butcher and Rincon.

Boggs anchors my fourth lineup in this year’s WISC, followed by Musial, Waner, Hornsby, Burns, Cobb, Boudreau and Wynegar. In addition to being a great lineup, they provide some solid defense all around, and good range up the middle.

I’m not sure how optimistic I am about this team, as I expect there will be many good ones in this theme, but they should be fun to watch.

Offense: .351/.425/.499, 403 2B and only 289 Ks
Pitching: 1,577 IP, 1.03 WHIP, 1.89 ERA, 4.93 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.1 HR/9


Variable Cap: Minus XY
160 Shades of Grey
League Park II

I’m going to jinx myself up front: I feel awesome about this team.

There are a few things that immediately jumped into my head when I saw this theme:

• 1908 starting pitching
• 1895 Phillies OF
• 1927 (Giants IF, Ruth, Waner, etc.)

Thus began the tinkering. I started with a rotation of Joss, Mathewson and Walsh, with the 1927 Giants IF, Ruth and Waner. Ultimately, I built a $165 team with Ruth and Gehrig that was solid, but I figured we’d see a lot of deadballers in this league, which would diminish their value some. Ultimately, I decided to pass on them and go with a high-slugging, low-homer team and, after much tinkering, ended up with a roster I absolutely love.

I went a bit overboard on IP, but we’re in a relatively extreme hitters park and I expect to see some great lineups, so I didn’t want to be cut short.

Seasons: 1895, 1908, 1915, 1927
Franchises: Phillies, Senators, Pirates, Giants, Indians

Lineup:

’95 Hamilton
’27 Waner
’27 Hornsby
’95 Delahanty
’95 Thompson
’08 Wagner
’27 Traynor
’08 Bresnahan

Pitching:

’08 Joss
’08 Mathewson
’15 Alexander
’15 Johnson
’08 Coveleski
’15 Dumont

Offense: .354/.426/.517, 359 2B, 110 3B, 109 HR
Pitching: 1,708 IP, 0.88 WHIP, 1.44 WHIP, 5 K/9, 1.33 BB/9, 0.08 HR/9

Posted by ozomatli on 8/11/2019 11:58:00 PM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 8/11/2019 11:39:00 PM (view original):
Ozo, can you perhaps explain what the Value Index measures? Not trying to steal your secret sauce, but I'm curious what factors into it.

At a base level, it factors in both quality and expense

If you want a really simple version of Value Index, you can just use the following. (I imagine that ozo's model starts like this, then adds a lot of bells and whistles.)

Each pitcher costs you two things, dollars and runs. You want to minimise the sum of those two. So you need two things. One, a prediction of how many runs they will cost - that is sim runs, not RL runs. Two, a guess at how to convert runs to dollars so they are on the same scale.

For the first - the run prediction - you can put a lot of effort into figuring out just how HR/9#, BB/9# etc, plus seasonal fielding normalisation, etc will play in the particular league you are in. Or you can just use ERC#, which is like 90% of what you want.

For the second, it's a bit trial and error. A rough idea is that each run is worth 1/1000 of the cap - so in a 90M league, a run is worth 90,000, in a 120M league, a run is worth 120,000, etc. Or you can try different numbers and see when the best value pitchers are approximately at the $/IP you want to spend for that kind of pitcher. (Maybe you want to spend more for closers, less for mop-ups, etc, so that has to factor into the run/dollar conversion.)

There is obviously a lot more you can do, but in about 10 minutes on Excel you can get a pretty simple Value Index that won't win the WISC on its own, but will do the job.

I suspect brianjw is a former Baseball Prospectus writer who now works for the Oakland A's.

Yeah, the fun part is that WIS doesn't actually use ERC# for anything, so you have to figure out what to do to do it

If you know enough to reverse engineer ERC#, you probably know enough to come up with something more useful.

Posted by ozomatli on 8/12/2019 2:38:00 AM (view original):
Also, last year I really slacked on this, but I'll be sharing some roster analysis for each theme within the next week.

Is it only because I bugged you about it ?

I'm not into complex formulas. I look at the basics and then just wing it based on mathematical instinct and past experience.

WIS write-up

Just a few housekeeping items before I narrate my strategies.
1. I think the organizer of the tourney encouraged participants to post in this thread. That was my motivation to post.
2. My view on WIS sports is I am in this for my own entertainment, sure winning is fun, but I don’t view this as some battle of the titans, or a test of mental superiority, or any other moral heavyweight battle (I would like to think I am pretty secure with myself). I doubt most people do, but I really don’t.
3. I really don’t ever use deadball pitchers that are so prevalent (and successful) because I usually just have dudes on my team that I think will be cool to have on my team. Most leagues I join revolve around me looking at a guy on baseball reference, thinking how cool it would be to have him on a sim team, and then a team is born.
4. Because I want guys on my teams that I think will be fun, interesting, or nostalgic to have on my team, guys from the 1980s are on my teams like grains of sand on a beach. I’m 40 years old, I don’t value winning as much as I value having fun with guys I liked rooting for as a kid. For instance, one season I made my team only from guys that were 1986 Donruss Diamond Kings. Sure all those guys were “Kings” but I only used them from the 1985 season ( what granted them 1986 “King” status). Sometimes you learn stuff that is shocking. Nobody ever had used 1985 Rick Mahler prior to me using him that sim. ****** gave me 279 IP at a 4.81 ERA, not too bad if you look at what you might expect from him based off his actual numbers. Stuff like that is more fun to me than defaulting into picking Addie Joss for every team. I am not judging people who do that, we all are here for different reasons and are entertained by different things. (Have never used Joss btw.)
5. I have never joined a private league - only public leagues. That said I have no illusions that I will not be getting an *** beating, but I will have fun seeing how my bands of ******* perform.
6. I don’t have algorithms, spreadsheets, formulas or fancy approaches. Sure I used the statistic filters, but I’m really just building the basics of my teams around plucking a few guys that I want, and then moving on from there. I didn’t run multiple potential teams for each theme. I’m like Ray Charles - one take baby. (Well, like Ray Charles with way less heroin.)
7. Finally, I think like cat people and dog people most people are batter people or pitcher people. I just view the game through pitching. So I would say that 95% of my teams start with me building my whole starting staff and at least one RP prior to drafting an offensive guy. It is just who I am, a pitching person.

With that, away we go.

70 MM Theme

What you are about to read is not a lie. I built at least 85% of this team WITHOUT knowing there was a first/last filter. (I might have built the whole rig without using that filter, can’t really recall – but may have happened.) Only after reading in the theme thread did I realize that was a thing. I built this team by trying to think about who had good rookie or final season, just through my memory. Now good rookie seasons are easy, but with this low cap you can’t just jam a bunch of ROY seasons on the team. So yeah...

I really enjoy John Tudor as a player. I could probably write 5,000 words on Tudor, but what would be the purpose of that? I knew he had a real solid final season (90 John Tudor) so that was my start to my rotation. A few months ago I was e-mailing with a friend about Craig McMurtry. I’m sure after his rookie season (1983: 225 IP 3.08 ERA) the Braves were like - “****, this dude is a rotation mainstay”. Well it didn’t work out that way. Still I remembered from b/r that he had that good rookie season so he was on the squad.

After that I realized I needed a legit #1. 1984 Doc Gooden is a pretty legit ace, I think, with his rookie campaign (218 IP 1.07 WHIP 11+ k/9), but I doubt most people wanted to bury 8MM on one player in this low cap. I still needed two other starters and recalled Hershiser (1984) was sort-of MLB ready from the word go even if he wasn’t lights out like he became. Also people forget that Dave Righetti won the ROY as a starter in 1981 and had some real good SP years before the Yankees moved him to be a closer - that was baseball in the the early 1980s.

To form my bullpen I figured that end of year guys would be good candidates. Mariano Rivera played that one last season (2013) after the ACL injury and was really good. I am fascinated by guys who retire early even though they clearly can still play - hence Tom Henke (1995) on the team. I knew a Bob Welch was a rookie sensation (1978), and he made some starts that year so I could spot start him if needed. I have used a young Joe Hesketh (1984) before in leagues so I knew about that season. I actually wanted to see if I could use Candelaria as a rookie and stumbled upon his final season (1992). I have two shitbum 200k guys for some mop up innings, although I fully expect t to have to swing a starter into the bullpen fairly regularly to keep the guys down there fresh. Obviously like many I will be hoping for no extra inning games.

I remember Gil McDougald as one of those guys who retired at like 32 as a productive player. I thought I would take his last season but I took his rookie season instead (1951). I knew that there would be a real tension between quality vs plate appearances here, both because of the low cap, but also almost by definition rookies and old ***** don’t play 162 games. So I wanted at least one position where I knew that I would just be able to draft for that position and forget. One thing I tried to do is make sure each guy I drafted had at least one redeeming quality. Sure none of the guys might have the same qualities, but what the hell right? I remembered the Padres started the Wizard from the word go – 668 plate appearances -and you know you get a certain elite skill with him (1978).

Next I was concerned about catcher. A position where even the best only play 140 games. I like Jim Sundberg, 40 WAR guy for his career. Nothing against Bob Boone, but Jim Sundberg was the player who performed like the media portrayed Bob Boone to perform. The 1970 Rangers sucked ballsack so I figured he started right away. Try to run on my guy (1974)Sundberg fuckfaces.

The rest of this offense was just a slog of thinking of guys and seeing who had OK rookie or final seasons. One thing I did try to emphasize was position eligibility. I figured fatigue is going to be a problem, not everyone gets tired at the same time, so if you have guys that can play more than one position, it can help manage fatigue. I figured a no brainer was 2013 Jurickson Profar who could draw a walk and play 2b, 3b, SS, and of. You’ll see a lot of crossover like that for this team. I want to be able to try and rest guys when they want it and if guys can toggle to other positions without defensive penalty, I thought that had value. I mean your don’t want some guy out there like the little leaguer wearing the glove on his head.

Funny aside, I ended up with Girardi (2002 – not his real final season, but it should have been) as my second catcher but gave long thought to having a final year Mickey Tettleton (1996) - who was essentially a DH then - be my second catcher because “He caught earlier in his career” as if sim Tettleton would remember those catching skills. LOL.
Primary Position in bold.

78 Ozzie Smith ss
61 Billy Williams rf/1b
96 Mickey Tettleton 1b
72 Buddy Bell cf (wtf!)/3b
51 Gil McDougald 3b/2b
74 Jim Sundberg c
94 Ryan Klesko lf/1b
04 Mark McLemore 2b/ 3b/of

Bench
02 Joe Girardi c
17 Chris Heisey of
90 Fred Lynn of
13 Jurickson Profar 2b/3b/ss/of
81 Dennis Werth c/1b/of

Rotation
83 Craig McMurtry
84 Doc Gooden
84 Bulldog Hershiser
81 Dave Righetti
90 El Tudor

Pen
17 Chris Young
17 Kevin Quackenbush
78 Bob Welch
84 Joe Hesketh
13 Mariano Rivera
95 Tom Henke
92 John Candelaria

Stadium: Arlington - low HRs as I don’t have much power and to help with pitcher fatigue. Rolled the dice that my guys can prevent some singles on defense and slap a few around on offense. My third base coach will be trying to score guys from first on singles.

90 MM Cap - Double Eagle

Not that I expect success here, but I felt most comfortable here as this is essentially an open league with 10MM more bucks.

I knew I wanted 1985 John Tudor but didn’t if he would pass the 40k IP rule. It did, that was the start I wanted. As stated above I usually avoid deadball guys so I almost always go with a 4 man staff. I like to anchor it with a guy who will comfortably get me over 300 IP. 1967 Gaylord Perry checks in at a shade under 9MM and a shade under 300 IP - nice combo. Have always wanted to use the good but never great Joe Niekro, so I grabbed his 1982 season. The first three starters all have at least 270 IP so I could grab some more impactful performance at a lower IP from (2018) Verlander at 214 IP and really nice numbers.

I got my favorite bullpen combo of 1987 Doyle Alexander and 1998 Randy Johnson (Tigers partial and Astros partial). I like having the high innings in the pen, and can drop in a spot start. Filled out the pen with some good peripheral sub 50 IP guys. I am going to work my starters deep into games.

As an open league guy, my main catcher strategy is get 600 PA and use AAA for the rest. Well that doesn’t work in any of these leagues so I am very sensitive to catcher fatigue. I figured if I had to break the bank on one offensive guy, might as well spend the money on a catcher and not worry about a backup. 1972 Johnny Bench gives me 686 PAs which should get me through the season. Bench had 40 dingers that year which is crazy from a C, so I embraced that and went with sluggers. I mean every one of my position players slugs at least .503 so we are bringing the lumber. My defense for the most part sucks, and my highest BA is (gulp) .270, but god help the team that can’t suppress HRs and faces this squad. Like I said, you have a catcher that bangs out 40 dingers, and you better play up to that.

Also shoutout to my main man Gorman Thomas who could smoke dingers with the best of them, and despite looking like a beer softball player is a stud defensively in the outfield. Also with the lower cap you will see positional eligibility aplenty here to fight fatigue.
Primary Position in bold

72 Johnny Bench c/1b/3b/of
79 Gorman Thomas cf
91 Howard Johnson lf/3b/s
06 Bill Hall ss/3b/2b/of
93 Danny Tartabull rf
98 Ken Caminiti 3b
15 Mark Teixeira 1b
78 Lee Lacey 2b/ 3b/ss/of

Bench
77 Bob Heise 1b/2b/3b/ss
54 Bobby Hoffman 1b/2b/3b
01 Ryan Minor 1b/3b/of
90 Tim Teufel 1b/2b/3b
53 Del Wilbur c/1b

Rotation
67 Gaylord Perry
85 El Tudor
82 Joe Niekro
18 Justin Verlander

Bullpen
17 Chris Young
05 Danny Graves
87 Doyle Alexander
98 Randy Johnson
18 Chaz Roe
83 Jeff Heathcock
18 Jesse Chavez
16 Jharel Cotton

Stadium: Riverfront - I mean if Bench hit all those HRs in Riverfront, why not roll with it. I think (fingers crossed) my staff suppresses HRs enough to get by at home, and it isn’t like this is a total launching pad but should be tough for anyone staff coming in here with HR tendencies.

110MM Cap
Stuff like this should let you know why I’m a *******, and not all that attuned to WIF lingo. I wanted to build my team around 1985 John Tudor. So my options were:

1. Find someone who could backdoor me into 1985 Tudor (someone with a Cardinal connection); or
2. Just build around Tudor

Option one seemed like a **** ton of work, so I went with option two.
It gets worse. The rules said no “combined” seasons for the chosen player. I really wanted to use Tudor from the Dodgers, but that was a season where he played for St. Louis and L.A. I didn’t realize that I could have used that “partial” Dodgers season, and not run afoul of the “combined” season rule. Like I said, I’m a *******. So at is was, I was already looking at using a not all that great 1980 John Tudor from Boston (which was fine because of the offense that brought) but the Dodgers Tudor would have added a bunch of nice pitching options aside from being a better Tudor than what I went with – 1984 John Tudor.
Not that 1984 John Tudor was a scrub, I just think he’ll have a ton of trouble in the league. So to make my pitching matters worse, I went with 1978 Bert Blyleven and 1977 John Candelaria. I think those guys are going to have a real tough go of it. Aside from 1985 Tudor, I just need my guys to sop up some innings, and I tried to build a solid pen. I went with some high-ish inning really good RPs – and tried to augment it with a few long guys that can sop up some innings.
I really, really, really think this starting pitching staff is going to have some real mental health issues from how bad they are going to get lit up. I hope the sim health insurance covers mental health treatment or these sims might go bankrupt from hourly payments to their therapists.
I knew that I needed to score a bunch of runs to offset the copious amounts of runs that my staff was going to give up, so I just went with the simple formula to try and assemble a 3/4/5 team. Which is just what it sounds like, offensive guys with .300/.400/.500 stat lines. I came pretty close and the Boston franchise allowed me to get some really thunderous offensive seasons in there: 1967 Yaz .326/.418/.622(!), 1979 Fred Lynn .333/.423/.637 and 1978 Jim Rice .315/.370/.600.
The rest of my guys look pretty close to 3/4/5 if you generously round. The other thing I was able to do here is get a bunch of high PA guys also, so my bench guys will spend most of the season masturbating on the bench like 15 year old boys. I know that 99% of staffs will be deadballers which takes some of the joy out of this lineup, but I’d like to think that what a 3/4/5 approach does is softens that because the guys can put the bat on the ball and draw some walks.
I truly believe this team will lose well in excess of 100 games. I probably should have just done the hard work and figured out a better way to use the 1985 John Tudor.
Primary Position in bold
1901 Honus Wagner ss/3b/2b/of
1978 Jim Rice lf
1952 Stan Musial 1b/of/p (looking at my staff Musial is probably my second best SP)
1967 Yaz rf
1938 Bobby Doerr 2b
1977 Carlton Fisk c
1979 Fred Lynn cf
1979 Bill Madlock 3b/1b/2b

1990 Rafael Belliard ss/2b/3b
2012 Matt Carpenter 1b/2b/3b/ss/of
1989 Tom Pagnozzi c/1b/3b
1988 Tom Prince c
2010 Josh Reddick of

Rotation
1989 El Tudor
1978 Bert Blyleven
1977 John Candelaria
1984 El Tudor

Bullpen
2018 Dovydas Neverauskas (not a made up name)
1985 Roger Clemens
1980 El Tudor
2017 Craig Kimbrell
2017 Felipe Rivero
2018 Felipe Vazquez
2004 Keith Foulke
1909 Charlie Smith

(As I write this, I just sent a sitemail to league commish because I believe my roster is invalid. This is my original roster, might not be the one I use in the league, but bonus points for who can spot the invalidity. This was not intentional, just slipped by me and I did notify the commish of it today. Just a bonkers situation that slipped by one of the rules. Like I said though, this is a 100 loss team with or without the player who makes this roster invalid.)

Ballpark: Three Rivers Stadium – This was essentially by default. If I put that pitching staff in Fenway that would have been a hate crime. I didn’t want to put that lineup in Busch, so my only choice was Three Rivers. It’s neutral on HRs which hopefully helps my staff, and suppresses singles and promotes doubles. This is going to be a brutal team.

120 MM Cap By the Numbers

Naturally I took the fives for my pitchers to secure 1985 John Tudor. Thankfully 1995 Greg Maddux was sitting there for me. I really struggled with what to do in 1975 so I took Catfish Hunters 333 IP and pretty nice supporting numbers (k/bb ratio was awful though) and paired that with lower inning 2015 Jake Arrietta. The real problem with taking a SPs from 70/80/80/2010s is that is when bullpen usage changed so I’d have to construct a bullpen from (aside from 2000) eras when bullpen guys main job was to not show up drunk to the game (or if they did show up drunk to the game, just drunk enough to be sober by the 8^th inning). So my bullpen is 2005 Matt Cain, and a bunch of guys who I had never heard of prior to running some searches. I did get a fresh back from WWII 1945 Bob Feller who I think can provide some real valuable innings out of the pen. I mean at least one dude out of 96 didn’t just to the rote thing and pick the 8s for pitching.

Taking a page from my 90MM cap league, I wanted a catcher who logged a bunch of innings. I didn’t want to **** money away on a backup catcher. 1950 Yogi Berra got 687 plate appearances, and put up a real nice .322/.380/.533. How about that Yogi hitting .322, you know that was a legit .322 because your average homeless guy could beat Yogi in a footrace so Yogi wasn’t legging out tons of infield hits. Honestly, after that I kind of just dinked and dunked around the 00s looking for dudes. I mean its getting to be a big cap so there aren’t any scrubs in this lineup, but how they fare against the pitching they will see is anyone’s guess.

I liked getting 1940 Johnny Mize on this team who I think was probably a top 5 1b dude in MLB history (Gehrig, Foxx, Pujols, Bagwell, Mize – but this is up for debate obviously).This is essentially as close as I could get to a 3/4/5 team (like my 110 MM team) subject to having to use the precise years. I had to sacrifice some games at the bottom of my lineup, but it was nice to have a bunch of small plate appearance deadball seasons to supplement for my games played.

Primary Position in bold

1940 Johnny Mize 1b
1970 Rusty Staub rf
2000 Derek Jeter ss
1950 Yogi Berra c
1980 Mike Schmidt 3b
1990 George Brett lf/1b/3b
1960 Frank Robinson cf/1b/3b
2010 Chase Utley 2b
1930 Bernie Friberg dh/2b/3b/ss/of

1890 John Carney 1b/of (if is safe to assume this is NOT the same John Carney who kicked for the San Diego Chargers in the 1990s? Can I get some research help on this? Thanks in advance.)
1910 Joe Jackson of
1900 Pop Schriver c/1b
1920 Whitey Witt 2b/ss/of

Rotation
1975 Catfish Hunter
1985 El Tudor
1995 Greg Maddux
2015 Jake Arrieta

Bullpen
1925 Ray Francis
1945 Bob Feller
1955 Don Bessent
1915 George Dumont
1905 Jack Powell
2005 Matt Cain
1935 Leon Chagnon
1965 Tom Kelly

Ballpark: Nationals Stadium – I just wanted to play this straight up. I really like my rotation and didn’t think they needed a whole lot of help (maybe Hunter) and thought my guys were good enough on offense to score on their own. I’ve had some OK experiences with neutral or neutral-ish parks before so I wasn’t afraid to go this route.

Calm Before the Storm

I don’t know why but I thought more people would embrace the strategy and try to get some moderate power in the lineup in round one (think 20-30 HRs) and then try to blow the doors off of it in round 2. I don’t know, I just thought we would see a bunch more than that, but from the write-ups I think more people went the low HR strategy. I guess this is my inexperience in these types of formats. I assumed I would be zigging when everyone else was zagging.

So this is my we dream of a 3/4/5 team, with nobody having more than 5 dingers. I literally just put a .300/.400/.500 filter on the position player search to generate a lineup. Lots of deadball type seasons post 1919 in here, with Wade Boggs. Also because I really, really really was tied to my 3/4/5 concept, I sacrificed a ton of games, but just loaded the bench with multi-positional 3/4/5 guys and some eye-popping stat lines over a short sample size. On defense, I don’t even think most of these guys will use a glove, they’ll just pick up the ball when it stops rolling.

Weirdly on pitching I did NOT take 1985 John Tudor. Although I doubt I’ll make it to round two, I wanted to save him for that round. So I took the (1980) John Tudor that would have the lowest HR ratio to allow me to take 1985 Tudor in round two. Then I just took that HR ratio and filtered it down to make my staff. I mean it wasn’t really that fun after that, just filtering for that HR ratio, and maybe a few other things and picking some randos and wierdos. This was probably my least fun team to make because it was so formula driven.

One interesting thing is I have 1965 Robin Roberts in the bullpen as a low HR ratio guy, but he is known, KNOWN, as giving up a ton of dingers. Small sample size and all.

Primary Position in bold

1920 Eddie Collins 2b
1988 Wade Boggs 3b
1936 Paul Waner lf
1922 Ty Cobb cf
1921 Tris Speaker rf
1943 Bill Dickey c
1939 Don Padgett 1b/c
1967 Bob Johnson ss/1b/2b/3b

Bench
1991 Brett Barberie 1b/2b/3b/ss
1938 Earle Bruckner c/1b
1942 Roy Cullenbine 1b/3b/of
1927 Doc Farrell 2b/3b/ss
1931 Lew Fonseca 1b/2b/3b/of
2002 Mark Loretta 1b/2b/3b/ss (.424/.481/.576 if you need it in 77 PAs)
2015 Corey Seager 3b/ss

Rotation
1933 Carl Hubbell
1994 Greg Maddux
1998 Kevin Brown
1999 Pedro Martinez

Bullpen
1981 Andy Rincon
1991 Mark Eichorn
1965 Robin Roberts
1940 Tiny Bonham
1993 Dennis Boucher
1980 El Tudor

Ballpark: Municipal Stadium – dual -4s for HRs, and +1/+3/+3 on inside the park stuff. I honestly hope that by mid June that my third base coach’s arm flies off he’s been wheeling guys around third so much.


Variable Cap Theme (ended up with a 160MM cap)

I can promise that probably nobody else build their team like I did. I started it by building it off of one team/one season. I don’t mean I was like “Well I’ll take 1927 Babe Ruth and Gehrig and build off that.” NO. What I mean is I loaded the whole 1985 Cardinals roster into the ******* team and then just worked from there.

Obviously I wanted 1985 John Tudor, and I thought “What the ****, the 1985 Cardinals were a good team, so they have to have some good guys – right?” So that is how I started my team. I think when I loaded that roster into the team it was like a 90MM roster, so I had A LOT of money to play with.

The first think I noticed is that the team was pretty weak on SP (well it was weak in a bunch of places – but first things first). I knew that I could get whatever SP I wanted and it would only drop my cap to 178. I locked into 1913 Walter Johnson – even I deserve one deadball pitcher. Obviously 1985 John Tudor wins the Cy Young Award almost any other season than the one that he did – so if I’m already buried with 1985, I thought it was just natural to take the guy who outpitched Tudor in that season – welcome 1985 Doc Gooden. The other nice thing is that opened up the 1985 Mets to me.

I love Sid Fernandez, he had to have the funkiest delivery out there. I think he might be the all-time leader is lowest average against (min 1500 IP or something), he was literally unhittable. I could take his 1985 season penalty free because of Gooden, so all 171 IP of 1985 Fernandez rounded out my staff. I fully expect to leverage into that Johnson IP bank and skip a few Fernandez starts. At this point I only sacrificed 3 franchises and 3 seasons so I still was at a cap of 171.


The 1985 Cardinals had terrible catching so I wanted to burn one last big bullet to solve that problem. I went with my favorite 1935 Jimmie Foxx – who qualifies at catcher. Sure he’s about as good a defensive catcher as I am, but look at that .346/.461/.636 you get behind the dish. I forgot that 1985 Lonnie Smith was one of those seasons where Lonnie was super high on drugs so I needed help in the OF. I already burned the Athletics organization on Foxx so I plucked 1990 Rickey Henderson to play in my OF. This then opened up the 1990 A’s bullpen so welcome to the team 1990 version of Dennis Eckersley, Gene Nelson, and Rick Honeycutt.

I filled in some upgrades with some more 1985 Mets – Gary Carter and Howard Johnson – these were cost free upgrades and also I can play Foxx for way fewer games at c. I got some more thunder in the lineup with minimal sacrifice by adding 1951 Stan Musial.

I had a bunch of room under the cap and thought I could use one more upgrade offensively and one more bullpen arm. I was able to get to a 159MM payroll with a 160MM cap by adding 1998 Craig Biggio and bringing along partial season 1998 Randy Johnson.

I only burned one player that was unpaired with any other benefit in Johnson, but that solved a huge hole in this team.

Primary Position in bold

1990 Rickey Henderson rf
1998 Craig Biggio 2b
1951 Stan Musial 1b
1935 Jimmie Foxx 3b/c/1b
1985 Willie McGee cf
1985 Gary Carter c/1b
1985 Ozzie Smith ss
1985 Vince Coleman rf

Bench
1985 Cesar Cedeno 1b/of (.434/.463.750 – jesus ****)
1985 Howard Johnson 3b/ss/of
1985 Tito Landrum of
1985 Terry Pendleton 3b
1985 Lonnie Smith of
1985 Andy Van Slyke of/1b

Rotation
1913 Walter Johnson
1985 El Tudor
1985 Doc Gooden
1985 Sid Fernandez

1985 Bob Forsch
1990 Dennis Eckersley
1990 Gene Nelson
1988 Randy Johnson
1990 Rick Honeycutt
1985 Bill Campbell
1985 Ken Daley

Stadium: Busch Stadium – I didn’t know what to do here really, I wanted to buttress my pitching staff in this high cap so I wanted to suppress HRs. I have some really good hitters but I top out at 36 in HRs, so I figured just roll with the stadium for the team that started it all, and try to beat the ball around the yard.

I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing this. I hope reading something different that how many guys pick teams would be interesting.

Yes it took longer to write about my teams that it did to draft my teams.

Posted by discodemo on 8/12/2019 10:37:00 AM (view original):
I suspect brianjw is a former Baseball Prospectus writer who now works for the Oakland A's.

Is it possible to 'partial' quote a post like this? The write-ups are very long and I just want to quote 1 or 2 lines and respond. Can I do that and how?